PROJECT SUMMARY. The Clinical Research Design, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics (CREB) Core of the obesity-focused Mississippi Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) will provide training and ongoing collaborative assistance to all investigators who are approved for support through any of the CCTR's programs or services, and assistance in preliminary study design to prospective applicants for CCTR support. Awardees of CCTR support will be referred to the Research Service Center for training in ethics, principles of Good Clinical Practice, and training and oversight in the responsible conduct of research. Applicants for support will receive guidance in study design for clinical, translational, and community engaged research, including, as appropriate, methods to enhance the power of studies and research methods for studies of vulnerable populations. Investigators who are approved for CCTR support will receive both didactic and hands- on training, and assistance in definitive study design and execution, including instrument, protocol, and Manual of Procedure development, and data coordination, analytics, and reporting. The CREB Core will provide statistical review of all applications for CCTR support, to help CCTR Scientific Review Panels identify proposals that are most likely to produce clear and interpretable results. CREB Core data scientists will work with the CCTR Informatics Coordinator, UMMC's Enterprise Data Warehouse Data Governance Committee, and the Jackson Heart Study and ARIC study Data Coordinating Centers to optimize access to and utilization of clinical and observational cohort data by CCTR-supported investigators and others. Finally, the CREB Core will provide full support to all CCTR-funded investigators by helping them design clinical, translational, and community-based follow-up studies and prepare grant applications based on the results of CCTR-supported research. These activities of the CREB Core will increase the quality of applications for CCTR support, ensure that funding is targeted toward studies that are most likely to succeed, produce well-trained investigators with efficient and successful research projects, enhance resources for hospital- and community-based epidemiologic studies, and promote the success of CCTR investigators in producing high-impact scientific results and obtaining sustained extramural funding. By these contributions the CREB Core will do much to develop the human assets and extramural funding base needed for a sustained, powerful research enterprise that will lead to reductions in obesity, obesity-related diseases, and associated health disparities in Mississippi.